1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a technical field that concerns inkjet printing, and the like, capable of fixing, by hot air, an image printed by the application of ink to a print medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printing apparatuses, such as inkjet printers and the like, that facilitate the fixation of a printed image by blowing hot air onto an image printed by the application of ink onto a print medium, are known in the prior art. As one such printing apparatus, Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-071474 discloses an apparatus that circulates hot air by returning to a blowing mechanism, provided with an air heating heater and a fan, hot air that has been blown from the blowing mechanism onto an image printed on a print medium. This type of hot air circulation structure can reduce the heat energy of a heater that is necessary for regulating air to a prescribed temperature, and has an advantage in that it is suited for energy conservation.
However, when hot air is circulated the humidity of the hot air generally increases due to vapor evaporated from the printed image. In particular, the amount of this evaporated ink becomes large and the increase of humidity in the hot air becomes marked when continuously printing multiple pages of print media and when performing a high duty printing wherein the ink ejected per unit area is increased.
When the humidity of air (hot air) circulated in this manner increases, the dew point temperature also increases. In this case, when the temperature of the print medium, which has been exposed to hot air in order to dry it, becomes lower than the dew point temperature due to the influence of the ambient temperature or the like, condensation of moisture in the hot air occurs and moisture adheres to the print medium. For this reason, drying of the image printed on the print medium becomes insufficient, moisture within the print medium increases, and because of this a problem occurs wherein the drying efficiency is decreased.